2008 June 23

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SW2008: Creating a Configuration Property Manager

June 23rd, 2008 |

Last week’s meeting and all the talk about automation got me really inspired, so I decided to try some of the suggestions myself. While searching through parts and assemblies that I could use for my experiments in automation, I happened to notice something that is actually new functionality included in SolidWorks 2008. RMB clicking the part icon on the top of the Feature Manager for a part with multiple configurations, the menu displayed an option that wasn’t there in SW2007: Create Property Manager. This option wasn’t available for a different part that had no configurations at all. Being the curious cat that I am, I clicked on it. Hmmm, it wasn’t quite clear for me what this was about, except that it somehow had something to do with the different configurations of my part. So, I finally took a look at the “What’s New?” document and found out that, for parts that have two configurations or more, this new functionality allows you to create a property manager that will let you, or others, select which one of these configurations to use when inserting the part in an assembly. There was also a small tutorial, included in the pdf file, which teaches you how to create a property manager for a part that has seven different configurations, each one a variation of the same part, only with different dimensions for a couple of features.

Now, before starting the tutorial, I wanted to know what difference it makes to insert a part with and without this property manager. First, I tried to insert the part that was included for the tutorial by dragging it into a new assembly from the SolidWorks search. This is the part BEFORE creating the property manager. An option to select a configuration is given as soon as you drop the part in the assembly, but you really don’t know what the dimension is applied to from that list. See the following image.

I also tried to insert the part into the assembly by the traditional method (Insert Component). This time, I didn’t get an option to choose a configuration for the part as soon as it was inserted, so I RMB clicked on it and chose Configure Component from the menu. The following image shows you my options at this point. Again, I can’t quite say what feature of the part those dimensions apply to.

Once I followed the instructions in the tutorial and created a Configuration Property Manager for that same part, however, I was able to see this property manager every time the part was inserted into an assembly. As you can see, from this property manager you can select a configuration not only by its name, but also, provided that you label them correctly and meaningfully of course, you can see the parameters that are being configured and have a better idea of what you are choosing in each configuration.

Creating one of these Property Managers is really easy. After solving the tutorial, I tried my own with a part I had made some time ago: the clothes hanger. First, you RMB click on the parts icon at the top of the feature manager and select Create Property Manager, a dialog box appears. On the left side, you have all the parameters that are being configured in your part, and on the right, a preview of what your property manager will look like. In the case of my hanger, I didn’t have dimensions to configure, only suppression states for several features in the part. The column Display State gives you three options to choose from: enabled, hidden, and referenced. If you choose Hidden, the property won’t even appear in your Property Manager. Notice how I chose to hide Plane4 and Sketch12, and that’s why they are not listed among the parameters on the right side of the dialog box. If you choose Enabled, the parameter will appear in the property manager, and, if there’s anything to choose for that particular parameter (a dimension for instance), a selection box for the parameter will also appear, listing all the possible values available for it in each configuration of the part. If you choose Referenced for a parameter, it will appear in the property manager, but you can’t really choose anything about it. The column Label allows you to assign a name for each of the parameters. It’s a good idea to assign names that may be meaningful to you and others. I really lack some finesse on that area; I simply assigned the same name of the features in the part. All I wanted was to see how the property manager would look like. The Order column is merely to organize the parameters and how they will be listed in the property manager. This is the dialog box for my clothes hanger.

And this is the dialog box for the part included with the tutorial. Notice the selection boxes under the parameters labeled as Boss Diameter and Bore. The parameter Bolt Distance appears as Referenced, and displays a value of 3, that will remain the same for all configurations.

This is how the property manager for my hanger looks like when I’m inserting the part into an assembly. In this case, I have chosen the configuration named “Hanger – Style 2”. The list of parameters in the property manager shows all the features that are being configured, and those that are unsuppressed for this particular configuration display a checkmark on them.